and welcome back to the big picture i'm sam sacks in for tom hartman coming up in this half hour another day another mass shooting in america two firefighters are dead in new york after drange man went on a shooting spree monday but the question is after all of this are americans finally ready to take on the n.r.a. and pass legislation to make us all safer from gun violence and later in tonight

still you take the u.s. military said a new record in afghanistan this year i'll tell you what it is and what it has to do with the n.r.a. later in the show. what you see behind me here in just a moment is a bushmaster assault rifle right there it's a weapon that is legally bought and sold in the united states and it's a weapon that is increasingly becoming the weapon of choice for the duration america to kill a lot of people on christmas eve a disturbed ex convict killed his sister and then set his house on fire with the intention of shooting the first responders who showed up to put the fire out and that's just what he did armed with a revolver a shotgun and of course the bushmaster the man took position behind

a hill near his inferno of a house when first responders showed up the man opened fire with his bushmaster killing two firefighters eventually shot himself dead yet another mass murder suicide in america just as we saw in newtown connecticut a week and a half ago and again it was a mass murder made easier by this assault weapon this one behind me known as a bushmaster but if you were to ask the n.r.a. about it they tell you the bushmaster and the ease at which the mentally ill and violent get their hands on it and other guns in general had nothing to do with this latest mass shooting. we don't know how an ex-con who is barred from purchasing guns acquired the bushmaster but given that the n.r.a. has lobbied hard to prevent background checks on all gun purchases in america so that today forty percent of gun purchases are done without a background check at all it's fair to assume that the man bought his bushmaster

with relative ease and it just so happens that eighty percent of violent firearm crimes are committed with guns bought using this same background check loophole but again to the n.r.a. that's not a problem the n.r.a. the problem is there just aren't enough security guards there just aren't enough good guys with guns out there to take down the bad guys with guns that's why the n.r.a. last week proposed their schools shield program which would place armed guards in front of every school in america armed to big government guards that would also need to be carrying heavy assault rifles to defend against the new weapon of choice for mass shooters in america but as we saw on christmas eve in webster new york mass shootings tragically aren't exclusive to schools they happen in churches and shopping malls and on the streets against firefighters doing their job so would wayne la pierre the executive vice president the n.r.a. suggest we need armed guards rolling alongside fire trucks now two or bushmaster

toting guards in front of churches in shopping malls as well maybe i wouldn't put anything past the lunatics in the n.r.a. at this point. but it's clear to me what the n.r.a. has intentions are here they've played a significant role in and profited immensely from dispensing around three hundred million guns in a whole lot of bushmasters around the nation to practically anyone who wants one over the last few decades and now rather than doing anything on the gun control side the n.r.a. is asking the federal government to step in with armed guards and protect americans from the dangers these weapons pose in communities across america if you think this solution is out of touch well you're not alone here's what top republican pollster and corporatist wordsmith frank luntz donning a fancy new beard had to say on c.b.s. this morning. so the public wants guns out of the schools not in the schools and they're not asking for a security official or someone else i don't think the n.r.a.

is listening i don't think that they understand most americans would protect the second amendment rights and yet agree with the idea that not every human being should own a gun not every gun should be available at anytime anywhere for anyone that gun shows you should not be able to buy something right there and then without any kind of check whatsoever so does that mean the nation is finally ready to take on the n.r.a. let's ask richard usko here in los angeles he's a senior fellow at the campaign for america's future and here in the studio marc harrold libertarian commentator and attorney and author of the book observations of white noise an acid test for the first amendment welcome to you both richard marc thanks for coming out to be richard you were an article for the huffington post yesterday and you argue that wall street is behind a lot of these should you kind of reform out quick yeah i mean i think it's more you know to say wall street's behind it sounds a slightly more conspiratorial i think it's what the israelis call the conspiracy

of shared values or in this case shared interests you know i think there are a lot of people who are outraged at the n.r.a. because wayne la pierre the head of the n.r.a. makes it very convenient target because he's so outrageous but a lot of people are making a lot of money off the gun industry and a lot of people are doing very well politically by being allies of the gun industry so you have you have it for example severus capital which is run by steven feinberg the republican contributor which owned the group that own both bushmaster and remington which makes the military version of this adaptive combat right so that's really a weapon of mass destruction so it's getting government money manufacturing these rifles as well as getting money by selling them to civilians. in an unrestricted way you've got. you've got steve schwarzman who is the head of blackstone group who

famously said we're getting rid of the hedge fund tax loophole would be like hitler invading poland he's been a financial advisor to the cold gun manufacturers all down the line there are a lot of people making a lot of money off the gun industry and by the way i specifically said in the piece i'm not recommending any government action about it but i think it's totally appropriate to name and shame people who profiteer off and industry and the lobbying for this industry there's also the death of schoolchildren that i think you've identified the main problem here mark and i want to bring you in on this is that when it comes to guns we're not talking about a constitutional second right second amendment right anymore to me we're talking about maintaining a business that is extremely profitable in america so let's say for example you know to really protect the second amendment the government said everybody when you turn eighteen you can come by pick up your own handgun you have to have a proficiency test test the register everything that. everybody would be outraged

going to be outraged by that because they want to sell as many guns as they planned to as many people as they turn over and over again i mean isn't that a huge problem that i'm not sure who's supplying these guns of the government's given away in your hypo and i agree to some degree it's a big it's a big industry because this is a product in demand people exercise their second amendment rights you know it's the n.r.a. is not the wizard of oz it's not some faceless thing there are four four million members in a four million voting americans part of this is not just that the people that don't like guns don't like guns the people that a lot of the people that don't like guns don't like people who do like there's a lot of that in in the mix in this thing and so like for instance he makes a blackstone well it's not just the republicans who are in with blackstone tony tony james had a big fundraiser for obama it's both parties are involved in this because there are big money and i'm not saying you're completely wrong that there's big money in this why is there big money in this because people want guns they exercise their second member rights they're important to him and we've seen that since this came up with guns and always remember the problem do you see there's something wrong with this

being such a big money industry is not in it killing thirty thousand people every year in the country no it's not no first of all the industry is not killing the people they're making a lawful product available and that lawful products some people exercising their rights abuse their rights we see that with all rights and they have used their rights and people get hurt but when there's nothing at stake it's easy to talk about the second image when there's nothing at stake anybody can do that what do you make of what do you make it go ahead richard. well i think you know first of all the auto industry is a big industry but i have to take a driver's test the you know we could go on and on with this and i think that you know although as a libertarian a mark maybe a slight exception to this people who are entirely willing to waive someone civil liberties for the wrong religion or certainly for having a conviction in their background are absolutely ok with a set of laws that says you can beat your grandmother to death as the man did in upstate new york and still go to a gun show and buy a weapon of mass destruction nobody's talking about outlawing guns you know people talk about your second amendment rights while you've got

a right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness that was denied to twenty school kids in newtown so i think that you know your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins as well roger said this is a lot graver than that i think it's time to get serious about managing this deadly problem and not letting law be as right these loopholes that result in the real killer is getting guns and hurting people right and the guy is an ex-con in new york and not this any i mean we don't know how he got his gun burned you can get a gun barrel easily no matter who you are in america isn't the n.r.a. way out in a different universe by not addressing that issue that there's forty percent of gun purchases in america that don't require any background check at all i mean they're not way out of left field the one thing i would say is if there are laws about guns if they i think there should be minimal restrictions but to the degree that the restrictions are there i think they should be uniform i don't understand and it's a little bit a misnomer that there's just total loophole but i know what you're talking about but yeah i mean if there are restrictions on guns whether it's felons or whatever i can see a uniform application of the law but we're taking

a big step out of this where you're talking about selling guns people making money about that's what you're forgetting is that there's not just individual liberty here there's an individual responsibility somebody is picking up that gun and going and doing something with it so everything that i'm hearing is about all the you don't want to get is a range people access to picking up those guns for me instead in the interim doesn't address that they want to have security guards in schools as liberal as. terry and does the idea of big government armed security guards make you a little uncomfortable that you know every school in america absolutely i don't agree i think the whole press conference was a train wreck i think was ill advised i don't think it came off right it's very emotional right now and i totally empathize with the people who are emotional i've had friends killed by gun violence and like i said if there is it's easy to talk about rights when there's nothing at stake but the bottom line on this is no i'm not for that program i would never be for a federal government program first of all i think the federal government should be involved in no way in local school districts so i certainly don't want to get the guard there if local police departments local communities whatever school resource officer that's a little bit different but at least as you know there's more federalist model but

no i'm against that program i think that's the wrong approach richard isn't sadly isn't the cake already baked here to a certain extent there's three hundred million guns already out there short of confiscating some of those guns are we just doomed to keep having these for the next you know decade until we have got a whole for the future we have just thirty seconds where there are a lot of guns in circulation we have more guns per capita in this country than pakistan or afghanistan or yemen or the sudan but that's no reason not to start doing the same thing for the coming generations which is to look at the numbers and the what's rational and get some controls and this is a serious long term problem as well as a short term problem that we're seeing week in week out richard marc harrold thank you both for coming you bet thank you. after the break which poses the greatest threat to americans gun violence or terrorism the answer may surprise you and so too will our government's responses to these two threats for tonight's there we took.

a look at the worst if you are going to. wipe out six of the radio guy minutes from a click. i want you to watch what we're about to do because you've never seen anything like this i'm selling. books. no more. solutions. for. iraq.

thank you. now it's time for tonight's the good the bad and the very very oxy a k at the silly ugly the good. governor jay nixon nixon is a democratic governor dealing with a republican controlled state legislature and as such yes a deal with really bad ideas fairly often the latest being a proposal by republican state legislators to allow teachers in missouri to carry handguns and the schools on monday governor nixon flat out rejected the idea saying quote i have serious concerns about recently introduced legislation that proposes not only to arm teachers but to do so by taking away the authority of local school districts to keep guns out of classrooms this legislation would put our children at

risk and limit the ability of local school districts to keep their schools safe and close now recognizing someone for saying arming teachers is a bad idea maybe setting the bar low for good behavior but considering that republican governors like rick perry in texas and bob mcdonnell in virginia support doing exactly that arming teachers and we should give props to a sane governor in a nation increasingly being taken over by insane governors. now the bat dick armey according to a new report by the washington post the former house majority leader turned lobbyist turned to astroturf tea party organizer tried to initiate an armed kuti of his beloved freedom works tea party organization as the post reports in september army walked into freedom works headquarters along with his assistant who is whole string a handgun army then ousted five employees of the organization who army deemed as

enemies six days later at the behest of a reclusive millionaire who controlled the purse strings at freedom works army relented the ousted employees were given their jobs back and on. army was the one sent packing but with a very generous eight million dollars severance package if you want to catch a glimpse about how problems would be resolved in a tea party libertarian utopia this story serves as an important lesson the man with a gun wins at first but the man with all the money wins in the end sorry dick and now the very very ugly country of germany for years now germany has been inflicting austerity on so-called debtor nations like greece and spain but now it's turning its austerity knives and words at its at its own aging populations an increasing number of elderly germans are being shipped off to retirement homes in health care facilities outside of germany off the eastern european and asia with one of the

fastest aging populations in the world and rising costs for elderly care germany has resorted to. cost control and deportations which social welfare organizations in the country have deemed as inhumane researchers have found more than seven thousand elderly germans living in homes in hungary plus another three thousand in the czech republic and six hundred slovakia sadly germany is now no country for old men and that is very very ugly. finally a disturbing new record was set in afghanistan this year as our military conducted four hundred forty seven drone strikes in the war torn nation in two thousand and twelve the most of any year ever in fact more drone strikes were carried out in

afghanistan this year alone than in pakistan over the last eight years countless thousands of afghans have been killed in these strikes and among them and unknown number of actual militants or terrorists and an unknown number of civilians including children our semi covert drone warfare program in afghanistan is a direct result of what happened on nine eleven and our military leaders our president and most of our elected members of congress all agree that these drone strikes are necessary to keep americans safe and this effort president obama has his own kill list and he's authorized deadly strikes against american citizens abroad with out first affording these individuals a trial in response to terrorism we have killer drones plus all the trappings of a surveillance state here at home but what we what do we as a nation what have we done in response to gun violence nothing well which is odd

considering that since two thousand americans have a one in three point five million chance of getting killed in a terrorist attack not only that if you don't account for american war zones in iraq and afghanistan then islamic terrorism killed at most four hundred people in two thousand and eleven roughly the same number of people who died in their bathtubs that same year in the united states alone. on the other hand on average thirty thousand americans die every single year by way of gun violence and since nine hundred sixty eight gun violence has killed more americans than every single war our nation has ever fought in its history combined so then given all this bloodshed by way of the gun why has our national response to gun violence been nonexistent while our national response to terrorism has completely transformed who we are as a nation and what sort of wars we fight abroad that's a tough question and it's the subject of tonight's that we take in the coming weeks

we'll find out just how far a lexus lawmakers are willing to go to protect our children from future gun massacres we already know how far lawmakers are willing to go to protect us from middle eastern terrorists group that is killed nothing close to the number of americans who die every day because of the n.r.a. if al qaeda were to strike the united states for example in the last remaining weeks of this year and kill as many americans as there are you know i love it it's the carnage still wouldn't compare to what guns do to americans every single year so far in two thousand and twelve more than nine thousand americans have died by way of the gun almost one hundred thousand were shot just this last saturday alone one hundred ninety people in america were shot at in newtown connecticut twenty first graders are dead gunned down by an assault rifle borrowed from a gun mom. it's interesting and instructive to compare our national response to

muslim religious extremist killers versus our response to largely white christian extremist killers at the end of two thousand and one a british islamic fundamentalist named richard reid tried to take down an american airlines flight headed to miami by igniting a bomb hidden in his shoe he failed no one died but extreme measures were immediately put into place at the airports around the nation forcing us to take off our shoes before we could board an airplane and more than a decade later we still had to take off our shoes at the airport and two thousand and six british police claim they foiled a terror plot aimed at ten drones atlantic flights headed to the united states in which liquid explosives were to be used never happened no one died but again extreme security measures were taken to ban all liquids and gels over three ounces to being carried beyond the security checkpoint at the airport that ban is still in place in two thousand and nine and alleged nigerian islamist tried to blow up a northwest airlines flight headed to the right by lighting his underwear on fire he failed no one died but in another hysterical and expensive response we spent

billions on chertoff x. ray port of scanners and for those who didn't want the radiation are growing breasts are thoroughly examined by and these three terror plots though never carried out and not responsible for the death of a single american triggered radical and very profitable security changes that have trashed our civil liberties and to add insult to injury epidemy of epidemiologists tell us that more people will die from cancer from the church affects very poor machines causing cancer than have died in any year of the past decade from terrorism in the united states when the danger is terrorism our policymakers and lawmakers respond quickly with frankly little concern about either cost or civil liberties. we are a national epidemic of gun violence it's an entirely different story after thirteen people were murdered in columbine in one thousand nine hundred nine not a single thing was done to address gun safety issues like nothing was done after

the d.c. sniper killed ten people in two thousand and two or after thirty two people were gunned down at virginia tech university in two thousand and seven or after a deranged man with very expensive assault weapons killed six people in tucson and shot congresswoman gabby giffords to the brain in two thousand and eleven despite that attack being so close to home for members of congress still no action was taken on gun safety just like no action was taken after the aurora colorado theater shooting this year that killed twelve people and nothing was done after the sikh temple massacre at oak creek wisconsin this year that killed six people had any of those mass shootings been done by al qaida and called terrorism our national response would have been swift and decisive and arguably hysterical instead we got optus which is in part because al qaeda didn't make the smart investment the cold remington did and get the n.r.a. to lobby for them just this year alone the n.r.a.

has spent nearly nineteen million dollars much of it from weapons manufacturers here in d.c. and across america to make sure that the gun industry can continue to make huge profits those investments keep in place the sale of assault weapons like the bushmaster which was used last friday to murder twenty children those investments keep in place the sale of high capacity clips like the ones believe used last friday to murder twenty children as investments keep in place background check loopholes which put guns into the hands of criminals in the mentally ill and put in place numerous limitations on our own government's ability to track guns or their users. ironically in two thousand and eleven the n.r.a. debate back a gun control measure that would have prevented those on the f.b.i.'s terror watch list can't get on an airplane would have prevented them from purchasing a gun and killed a son so in the future should al qaeda carry out the next mass shooting in america they may well have been able to do so because of the efforts of the n.r.a. money is another factor contracts to defense corporations and security firms after

nine eleven have exploded as both presidents george w. bush and president barack obama expanded our war economy and constructed a fierce security stayed home protecting the lives of americans is given as the main reason for the x. rays and growing checks of michael chertoff is made a million selling those airport porno scanners similarly there's enormous money to be made in the manufacture and sale of firearms at there's very little money to be made in the restriction of fire. the n.r.a. is second amendment freedom argument is just a cover for the real reason why they don't want americans to enjoy freedom from gun nuts there are millions in arguably billions in profits to be made keeping open the flow of deadly weapons no matter how many kids' lives are put at risk but tell the truth yet a raise hands are far bloodier than al qaeda is we as a nation wouldn't tolerate a muslim suicide bombing of a school bus that killed twenty first graders so why do we tolerate mass shootings

that do the same there are more than twenty mass shootings every year in america and over one hundred people are shot every day in america but the n.r.a. tells us we can do something about guns the rest of the world the developed world figured this out a long time ago in countries most trillion to england from switzerland to israel you have to prove that you actually have a need for a gun in order to either buy or own one or buy or own ammunition. we should do the same here in america and for those who actually need a weapon we should be say whether it's for hunting or for in their line of work let's at least require the same proof of proficiency and insurance that we would require from licensed drivers increasingly americans are recognizing the blood soaked gun lobby as the pariahs they are who have done far more damage to america than some of the lot never dreamed. and that's the way it is tonight when is the

december twenty sixth two thousand and twelve don't forget as tom always says democracy begins with you get out there get active tag you're it occupy something we'll see tomorrow.

thank you our.